me up from a dive.

With a sublimated confidence that was sickening to such citizens as had
known him when he worked for wages and wore overalls, and particularly
to Toomey, who took Teeters' success upon the ranch where he himself had
failed as a personal affront, Mr. Teeters flitted among the ladies, as
impartial as a bee in a bed of hollyhocks, tossing off compliments with
an ease which was a revelation to those who remembered the time when his
brain stopped working in the presence of the opposite sex quite as
effectually as though he had been hit with an axe.

Toomey not only resented Teeters' presence but the informality of his
manner toward Prentiss, which Toomey regarded as his special
prerogative. He already had had an argument with Sudds as to the
advisability of including Teeters among the guests, and now during a
lull his judgment was fully verified.

Mr. Teeters with a proud glance at the gaily draped room and at the
table decorated with real carnations and festoons of smilax, which were
visible through the double doors opening into the dining room, inquired
of Prentiss with hearty friendliness:

"Say, feller, don't this swell lay-out kinda take you back to Chicago or
New York?"

What further indiscretions of speech Teeters would have committed only
his Maker knows, for at the moment the clerk at the desk called his name
in an imperative voice. As the recipient of a telegram, Teeters had the
attention of everybody in the room, and none could fail to observe his
excitement as he folded the telegram and returned it to its envelope.

"I got me a dude comin' in on the train," addressing Sudds. "Could you
fix a place for him to eat? The train bein' late like this, he won't git
any supper otherwise. I wasn't expectin' of him for a month yet."

With an invitation thus publicly requisitioned, as it were, there was no
alternative but to assent.

The hands of the office clock were close to eight when, as though on a
signal, the hubbub of social intercourse ceased and eyes followed eyes
to the top of the stairs where two white-slippered feet showed through
the rungs of the balustrade and a slim hand sparkling with jewels
slipped gracefully along the polished rail. Then she appeared full
length, in a white dinner gown--clinging, soft, exquisite in its
simplicity and the perfection of its lines. With pearls in her ears and
about her throat, her hair drawn back in a simple knot, Kate looked like
one of the favori